Mail Merge

Question

I want to create individual donation letters for individuals.  I want to merge in type of donation and total for each donation for each individual per letter.  I can't figure out how to merge in the list and total of donations in the letter for each individual letter.  Can someone assist.

Answer 1

You can use Word's Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge facility for this (the terminology depends on the Word version). To see how to do so with any mailmerge data source supported by Word, check out my Microsoft Word Catalogue/Directory Mailmerge Tutorial at:

http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/38721-microsoft-word-catalogue-directory-mailmerge-tutorial.html

or:

http://www.gmayor.com/Zips/Catalogue%20Mailmerge.zip

The tutorial covers everything from list creation to the insertion & calculation of values in multi-record tables in letters. Do read the tutorial before trying to use the mailmerge document included with it.

Since the tutorial document includes working field codes for all of its examples, most of the hard work has already been done for you - you should be able to do little more than copy/paste the relevant field codes into your own mailmerge main document, substitute/insert  your own field names and adjust the formatting to get the results you desire. For some worked examples, see the attachments to the posts at:

http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/9180-mail-merge-duplicate-names-but-different-dollar.html#post23345

http://www.msofficeforums.com/mail-merge/11436-access-word-creating-list-multiple-records.html#post30327

Answer 2

Hi tjv1960,

You are welcome for the response.

I would defer to Doug Robbins' post above, where he refers to "Many to One type merges, which can be used for creating documents such as invoices where there are multiple records in the data source that have common data in one of the fields"

This is a previous thread where he also mentions his tools: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/fo...

-Ashton

Answer 3

Hi Ashton,

First, thank you for responding.  My issue is, I have more than one type of offering for each individual.  From the sample below – how would I get each offering type to appear. 

LAST NAME	FIRST NAME	OFFERING TYPE	Sum of TOTAL
JONES	TOM 1	ANGEL TREE	40
JONES	TOM 1	CHURCH ANNIVERSARY	100
JONES	TOM 1	TITHES	4845
JONES	TOM 1	CHURCH ANNIVERSARY	100
JONES	TOM 1	SENIOR LUNCHEON	10
JONES	TOM 1	TITHES	1000
ANDERSON	TOM 2	BUILDING FUND	1200
ANDERSON	TOM 2	CANCER AWARENESS	10
ANDERSON	TOM 2	CHURCH ANNIVERSARY	125
ANDERSON	TOM 2	EDUCATION FUND	20
ANDERSON	TOM 2	HVAC PROJECT	5
ANDERSON	TOM 2	Offering	3600
JONES	TOM 3	CHURCH ANNIVERSARY	100
JONES	TOM 3	TITHES	164

Answer 4

Use the Many-to-One facility on my Merge Tools add-in that is contained in the MERGE TOOLS ADD-IN.zip file that you can download the from the following page of my One Drive:

http://bit.ly/1hduSCB

Extract the files from the archive and read

“READ ME – Setting up and using the Merge Tools Add-in.docx

to see how to install and use the various tools.  Using those tools, it is possible to perform the following types of merge that cannot be done with Mail Merge “out-of-the-box”:

·       Merge to e-mail messages either with or without attachments, with the documents created by the merge being sent as either Word or PDF attachments or as the body of the e-mail message.

·       Merge to individual documents in either Word or PDF format with the filenames being supplied by the data in one of the fields in the data source

·       Many to One type merges, which can be used for creating documents such as invoices where there are multiple records in the data source that have common data in one of the fields

·       Merging to a document that will include a chart that is unique to each record in the data source

·       Merging a document with Content Controls

·       Merging a document that contains Legacy FormFields

·       Duplex Merges

·       Merging to a printer that will collate and staple the output created from each record in the data source.

Answer 5

Hi tjv1960,

I am an independent advisor and a Microsoft user like you, and I would be happy to help you out with this.

It is easiest to have the listing in an Excel spreadsheet set up in different columns:

For example:

Column A: Type of Donation

Column B: Total of Each Donation

In Word, you will want to go to the Mailings tab, and then select Start Mail Merge > Letters

Then, click on Select Recipients > Use an existing list...

This is where you can choose your Excel spreadsheet. You can choose the specific range to use if it is not in the whole spreadsheet.

Then, under Insert Merge Field, you can choose the appropriate field name there to insert it into the body of the document text.

You can preview it through the file, and when you are done, you can click on the "Finish & Merge" button, and if you choose "Edit individual documents" then it will create all the letters in one giant file.

You may wish to refer to this article for additional information:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/mail-m...

I hope this has helped you. If you have any questions about any of the above steps, please reply and let us know and we would be happy to help you further!

Regards,

-Ashton